"To teach children when they are young is much more about playing and discovering and much less about crayons and glue and workbooks. If we provide activities that will help children move, discover, play, create, sing, and work, they will be learning through experience more than we can teach them in any other way. "A child's work is a child's play" is an absolute truth. It is how they learn about their environment, their abilities, and their place in the world.
If the kids get tired after 1 or 2 activities, we will read, or sing, or go play in the sandbox. No pushing, no forcing, and it should be fun for them or the whole point is missed. So much of preschooling or educating our children seems to involve training them to learn by force, sitting down at a table filling out worksheets or practicing flash cards. How much more effective we can be if we will find the things they enjoy and help them learn and discover the treasure of it all.
Even if it's in the sandbox." ~ You Can Teach.com
How true it is, the last few days I was lamenting because I had slacked off on the reading 15 mins goal... and it has been an incredible struggle of late to get the boys to settle down and quiet down long enough to get in even the title of the book, little lone much more. Then I was reading today in Teaching Children Joy
by Linda & Richard Eyre about "how children love it when they find that their parents have imaginations!" There was more, and I decided to put it too the test. The boys ran into my room moments later chasing after each other and screaming (their favorite game!) and I turned out the lights and told them to run out to the living room because I had a surprise for them. I through on a big fuzzy brown robe and came stomping out saying I was the big reading bear and if they wanted to join me to jump up on the couch. They thought it was hilarious (the fact that my voice sounds like a bear right now due to a bad sinus infection I'm sure helped add to the fun!). And before they knew it I had read my voice hoarse! Hooray! It was such fun. And then we played a tickle game, they had to clean up one toy and then I'd tickle them or catch them and eat them up. Then they'd run off to find another toy to clean up and come scampering back to be "caught" again... it is funny how making things funny or fun can make ALL the difference in the world in getting children to help or read or play nice or take a bath or get dressed for bed, etc... And it is more funny sad how dad-gum hard it can be as an adult to do it that way instead of rolling our eyes (which no doubt is where teenagers learn it, is in their toddlerhood ;-) and getting frustrated and forcing the issue one way or another. So another goal: Work on making child's work = child's play, and learn to make mommy's work more in line with mommy's play too!
by Linda & Richard Eyre about "how children love it when they find that their parents have imaginations!" There was more, and I decided to put it too the test. The boys ran into my room moments later chasing after each other and screaming (their favorite game!) and I turned out the lights and told them to run out to the living room because I had a surprise for them. I through on a big fuzzy brown robe and came stomping out saying I was the big reading bear and if they wanted to join me to jump up on the couch. They thought it was hilarious (the fact that my voice sounds like a bear right now due to a bad sinus infection I'm sure helped add to the fun!). And before they knew it I had read my voice hoarse! Hooray! It was such fun. And then we played a tickle game, they had to clean up one toy and then I'd tickle them or catch them and eat them up. Then they'd run off to find another toy to clean up and come scampering back to be "caught" again... it is funny how making things funny or fun can make ALL the difference in the world in getting children to help or read or play nice or take a bath or get dressed for bed, etc... And it is more funny sad how dad-gum hard it can be as an adult to do it that way instead of rolling our eyes (which no doubt is where teenagers learn it, is in their toddlerhood ;-) and getting frustrated and forcing the issue one way or another. So another goal: Work on making child's work = child's play, and learn to make mommy's work more in line with mommy's play too!
Great posts! I think we often forget that what to us (and through our "adult" eyes) may seem inconsequential or a waste of time, to them is part of the magic of life. I think if we each thought back to the time when we were that age, we would recall that some of the simple joys of life were what we lived for. Even in this fast paced, busy and stressful world, we need to help create that special environment for our children.
ReplyDeleteBrian
Another Thought, though perhaps not entirely related:
ReplyDeleteWe often approach parenting with expectations in mind...or certain outcomes, if you will. We expect our children to behave this way, or act that way, and we often use coercive techniques to try and produce those results. While there is a definite place for parental authority and guidance, there must also be understanding and respect for their individual agency and intelligence. The Lord himself tells us that all intelligence is free in that sphere in which it is placed, otherwise there is no life or creation. Now, I've been as guilty as anyone in employing the "tricks" to get a certain result. But I'm just now coming to see that there must be room for agency and intelligent choice, even with our younger children; otherwise, there is no joyful existence, and all our efforts to produce a given outcome may end up frustrating the very things we're trying to achieve.
Brian